Читать книгу Franks: Duellist - Ambrose Pratt - Страница 6

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IT was a club, I suppose, that felled me, and when I woke to consciousness sunset was near at hand. It is ever a fool's mistake to underrate even the meanest enemy, and I now bitterly discounted the vainglorious impulse which had induced me to spare the life of the Marquis de Sevringen.

One hasty glance gave me the condition of affairs.

My lacquey, poor beggar, lay like a trussed fowl near by me, gagged firmly with a bloody kerchief.

The whole apartment was ransacked and horribly shipwrecked. The drawer of my cabinet and its contents dashed in one corner. My desk smashed to fragments, my bed hewn in pieces. The carpet up, torn and bundled in a heap, the very chairs unscrewed and their parts scattered broadcast. The marquis stood gloating like the pirate he was above the ruin he had caused, while two men, his creatures, were busily engaged in tearing up the floor at his direction. I could have wept with rage, for I had taken a pride in furnishing that room, and much gold and self-denial had its elegant fittings cost me. I found that my hands were bound behind my back, but I was not gagged, and with some trouble I raised myself to my elbow.

'Well,' I cried passionately, 'devil take me, but at anyrate you are earning a reputation for thoroughness.'

The marquis stepped forward and kicked me in the mouth.

'Hold your tongue,' he commanded.

Thank God his foot was lightly shod, but I tasted blood all the same, and his kick sent me half stunned to the floor again. I think this was the first occasion I had ever understood the proper meaning of the verb 'to hate.' 'Hate,' as a substantive, I had experienced before, but in an abstract fashion, and easily subject to control; entirely apart, indeed, from the active fury which possessed me now.

I lay still and worked silently at my bonds. I do not know if I have previously stated that physically I am a strong man. But such is the fact. An ordinary iron poker I can bend across my knee without pain; pennies I can break between my fingers; a pack of cards I can to this day tear in halves as easily as a child may tear a single sheet of paper; and at that time I was in the prime of manhood, in the acme of strength and vigour.

In the course of five minutes I had succeeded in loosening the cords that bound me, sufficiently, at all events, to afford a point d'appui, and I knew that when the time came I could burst them asunder with one great effort. Meanwhile the search went on, and from the heavy breathing of the marquis and his running fire of muttered curses I could judge how anxious he was that his quest should be rewarded. This set me thinking. To an important agent of the great Napoleon it seemed unlikely that even so large a sum as ten thousand pounds should be of so much moment, considering, too, how liberally the Emperor was reported to be in the habit of supplying his trusted servants. By any chance could that purse have contained a second compartment? Could the skull possess some mystery of its own? I had been so delighted with my windfall that I had but cursorily glanced at either before consigning them to concealment. I reflected also that a man so cowardly as I had proved De Sevringen to be would not have adopted that morning's daring course without strong urging. For a further half hour the three scoundrels continued their work, watched all the while by me with unconcealed amusement. Twenty times they were on the verge of making the discovery they so ardently desired, and twenty times they paused upon the threshold.

I might remark that my hiding-place was secure more by reason of its simplicity than aught else. It was too simple to suspect anyone but a fool of choosing as a bank. It consisted of nothing but an ornamental iron rubbish box into which I usually tossed all manner of odds and ends; but the box had a double bottom, and the idiots never gave such a possibility a thought. I judged the marquis was at the end of his resources when he came to me at last. Such proved to be the case. 'If you value your life,' he muttered savagely, 'you will assist us, milord.'

I laughed in his face. 'Have the goodness to free my hands then, marquis.'

'Do I look such a fool?' he snarled.

'Thanks,' I cried gaily, 'but the compliment to me dishonours yourself. What, three to one and still afraid?'

He went white to the lips and drew his dagger, and at a word his followers were on me. One knelt on my chest, the other sat astride my legs. Even Hercules would have refused the struggle. I lay still.

'Hear me,' said De Sevringen. 'Return me the purse and skull. I will give you the money and your life.'

But I was foolish enough to lose my temper.

'Find them yourself, you pig of a coward,' I snarled.

The marquis knelt on my stomach and slit open my doublet with his knife. I struggled like a lion, but in vain. Remember, I was lying on my back with the weight of three big men and my own upon my bound arms!

The marquis bared my chest and deliberately commenced to slice at my skin with his dagger point.

'I am carving my name at present,' he announced coldly. 'If that does not suffice I shall cut out your ribs one by one.'

The torture, however, was sufficiently keen. 'Enough!' I gasped.

Sevringen desisted immediately. 'Speak!' he commanded.

But I continued to pant and blow, and made so good a show of it that he ordered his men to arise, and got to his feet himself.

'Water!' I gasped. One of the ruffians fetched me a glass and raised my head. I pretended to be utterly undone and spilt more than half, but I had effected my purpose, and I knew where rested my sword when I fell back; but the marquis got impatient and gave me a brutal kick in the ribs. 'Enough of this,' he snarled; 'point out your hiding-place.'

I nodded with an affectation of parlous weakness to the wall opposite, twenty feet away. 'Button, third—p—panel—corner,' I muttered and pretended to swoon.

From almost closed eyes I watched two of the rascals speed off to tap the panels indicated, but the marquis was cleverer than I thought, and he remained by me with naked dagger. But his men were slow and himself impatient. 'One of you come here,' he cried, 'and let me look.'

But he did not wait, striding off as he spoke.

I seized the opportunity and put forth every ounce of force I possessed. The cords parted with a crackling rend. Quick as thought I flung myself upon my sword and dragged myself to a stand by the aid of a broken table, cutting the bonds of my feet as I rose. Even then I was scarcely in time, and the marquis's dagger scored my left arm from wrist to elbow as he darted at me. I sent him back with a right-hand blow, smashing his face with my sword hilt, and then engaged the points of the other two, who now confronted me. Another second and it was three, for De Sevringen discarded his dagger and drew his rapier.

'Twas then I needed every particle of my great strength, every tittle of my skill of fence gained in parading various gentlemen on a hundred diverse greenswards. But it is a different matter to fence with three skilled swordsmen than with one; besides, my limbs were cramped and my head dizzy.

The shape of the room alone saved me—that, and the rascals' own reckless waste of my good furniture.

I sprang over a pile of wrecked goods and confronted them from a long alcove which usually served for Richard's mattress, now a tangled mass of straw and horsehair strewn at the other end of the apartment.

They came at me like bloodhounds, but one tripped over an upturned chair, and I spitted him with the best heart in the world.

I came very near forgetting the marquis's armour once, thrusting full at his chest, but luckily he stepped aside, floundering over the wreckage, and I sent my point through both his cheeks, damaging his molars in the passage too, I fancy.

The third man gave me some trouble for a while, but finally I got under his guard and drove my rapier hilt-deep in his heart.

Sevringen did not, however, wait for me to finish him; his retreat was open, and, like a good general, observing himself overmatched he took to his heels with a grace and readiness I could not sufficiently admire. I was far too weary to follow him, and, besides, the cut on my arm was bleeding freely. This, however, Richards soon put to rights, binding it up with a balsam which his old mother had given him as a cure for all fleshly ills, and which I imagine overjoyed the rascal to find of use.

Then ensued the question what to do with the bodies of my two late enemies.

A glance assured us that both were dead. Richards was for informing the watch, but I saw trouble in that course, and as it was now dark, and the street at that hour quite deserted, we simply bundled them out the window and let them thud on to the pave below. I never afterwards heard of their having been discovered by the authorities, so I infer that the marquis, who had proved himself a person of wide resource, subsequently returned and found a means of getting rid of such nasty reminiscences of his visit to my apartment.

The wretch had treated my wardrobe as shabbily as the rest of my belongings, so I was constrained to attend the Prince in the clothes I wore. I found him at St. James's, just sitting down to dine in the old banqueting-hall of the palace, which he had tavernised with his not infrequent revelries. Twenty brilliant gentlemen attended him, but he shone forth the handsomest, and at the same time the most uncouth, of all. I noticed Lord Melville, Brummel, Eveston, Bailey and Winston Dodge, the coarsest and wittiest man in London, among the guests. The fair sex was well represented—a score of beautiful ingenués being present, chaperoned by Lady Hamilton, into whose ear Lord Welland, then on a flying visit to the capital, whispered continually.

George swore at me for being late.

'Damn your eyes,' he roared, 'we waited for you a quarter hour!'

I tapped my bandaged arm and muttered meaningly, 'I received a scratch this afternoon, your Highness, which I was forced to have attended to.'

Was it my fault that he should jump to a false conclusion? I spoke the simple truth, and yet he sprang to his feet and patted me affectionately on the shoulder, then dragged me to a seat beside him, dispossessing no less a person than Lady Pauline Benson from her chair in order to do so. 'Sit you there,' he blustered, 'and don't Highness me, lad; to you I'm George—plain George,' and he laughed boisterously.

Melville eyed me from across the table with an incredulous stare, then turned to his companion. 'It's that damned young rascal Franks—Devenac's brother,' he muttered hoarsely, and his astounded remark sent the entire table into peals of laughter.

I bowed to him ceremoniously. 'And entirely at your service at any hour or place you please,' I assured him.

But this was treated as an even greater jest, and in a few seconds I found myself the lion of the party. The Prince recounted in a racy manner his imaginary adventure of the afternoon, and in the recital I was made to appear a veritable preux chevalier. 'And now you behold him, this young hero, wounded in my service,' concluded His Highness. 'He may be all you say, Melville, I won't gainsay that, but a man is none the worse for his wild oats, and Franks is my very good friend.'

I should have listened to this speech, I daresay, with burning ears; in reality I did feel a trifle shamed, for I discerned in the Prince's manner a sincere if sudden regard for me, but I fear it was but a momentary lapse into grace, and presently I swaggered like a veritable coxcomb. I struck into every discourse, damned the Government, the management of the war, and aired my other political opinions with the daring of a fearless critic, and for hours kept the table in a constant peal of mirth, to the delight of the Prince and to the chagrin of every other gentleman present, for I treated the men with contempt, being incited thereto by the open encouragement of two score of the brightest eyes in England. Even Dodge could not intrude a word in edgeways, and he contented himself with muttering sarcasms behind his wine-cup. I enjoyed myself to the top of my bent, and not till the clock chimed midnight did I permit myself a single pause. But by that time, with very few exceptions, the gentlemen were drunk or had remembered their appointments. Melville was the first to go, and he retired with Lady Hamilton amidst a storm of innuendoes none too daintily expressed. No less than three invitations fell to my lot, but the Prince refused to part with me and insisted I should spend the night with him. At this Mrs. Cummings gave me a glance I could not mistake, for the Prince was plainly quite intoxicated, and he kept replenishing his glass with frank abandon.

Now Jane Cummings was superlatively pretty, and her figure at once the envy and despair of all other women who aspired to the Prince's favour. But it is one thing to deceive a man in order to win his friendship. That I count pardonable if no more vital harm be intended.

Yet although I have never affected to be a mirror of the virtues, I could not bring myself to embrace the prevailing maxim that 'a man's wife is for himself, his mistress for the monde.' Besides, there was another appointment which I had sworn to keep.

The position was difficult but I trusted to luck, that eternal refuge of the destitute and desperate. When all had gone the Prince took my arm and staggered with me to his chamber, where he allowed me the distinguished honour of removing his boots. I think, too, he expected me to undress him, but I was spared that superlative distinction by reason of the fact that long before I had removed his second buckle he was locked in the arms of Morpheus. This pleased me, and I determined to summon his servant and quietly steal away.

Imagine my consternation to find the door bolted, and from the outside.

My thoughts flew at once to some plot against the Prince's life, and I had my rapier out in a twinkling. I quickly lighted every candle in the apartment, and searched under the bed, behind curtains, in the Prince's wardrobe, everywhere, in fact, but I could not find a living creature bigger than a mouse, which darted under the wainscot from a feast of crumbs at which I disturbed him. Plainly then I had to fear from without and not from within. My first measure was to bar the door from within. I then commenced to examine the other entrances to the apartment. At first I could discover none, but presently drawing a curtain aside a thin bar of light arrested my attention. I approached cautiously, searched for, discovered and tried the handle; it gave softly. I turned it, but of a sudden the door was plucked from me, and there, standing in a flood of golden light, appeared an apparition of marvellous loveliness. I fell back dazed, but the lady gave a little scream at sight of my rapier. 'I found the outer door locked,' I explained sheepishly.

'And you suspected an assassin,' flashed the lady. 'But I, sir, suspected you; it was I locked the door.'

'Name of a dog and why?' I demanded.

'Because,' she returned laconically.

'Because why?'

She shook her head at me and took the rapier from my hand. 'Because I knew you intended to slip away,' and she put the rapier behind the door.

'How did you know?' I queried, feeling the while the biggest fool in London.

'Because Ruth told me,' She launched the shaft with venomous directness, and it struck home, but I was too experienced to let her see it.

'Then if you knew this, why seek to detain me?' I retorted.

But after all I was unprepared. Ah! women, women, what inexplicable, and at the same time childish, creatures you are! and yet how you can twist us men to your wishes.

I declare that this pretty creature, in all the witchery of her night-robe, with her tiny bare pink feet softly denting the carpet, the gleam of her splendid beauties shining through her laces, and all the subtle intoxication of perfumed charms about her, chose rather the assault of tears for my undoing. She raised to mine two dark and tender orbs on whose lashes trembled: two big, glistening, liquid diamonds. 'I was jealous,' she muttered.

'Jealous!' I stammered.

'Oh, don't tell me you do not know—you have seen it often.'

I had suspected it certainly, but I temporised. 'Seen what?' I whispered.

'That I love you,' she murmured, and with a gesture of passionate abandon threw herself into my arms. Our lips met in a long, madly intoxicating kiss.

'I worship you,' I whispered with ardour equal to her own. Closing her eyes, she allowed her head to sink upon my shoulder, half swooning. It was an unfortunate movement for her wishes, because it allowed me full vision of the Prince, who lay like a log, sleeping the sleep of peace and perfect fulness.

But the sight brought me sharply to my senses, and my conscience, generally my friend, loudly at that instant proclaimed itself my enemy. I determined to escape, but foresaw that I must not allow the lady to suspect it. She would not understand, let alone appreciate, my scruples, for a woman in love is capable of any crime. Moreover, my determination was not so perfect in itself that I could dare trifle with it, since, as I have before remarked, Mrs. Cummings was a singularly beautiful woman, and I flatter myself I am competent to pass opinion in such matters.

I led her gently into her own chamber and she sank upon her couch, still in a real or affected half-swooning condition.

I dare not even glance at her lest I be tempted overmuch. I put out the lights one by one and then crept on tip-toe to the outer door.

Fortune favoured me; in her haste and emotion at entrapping me, the lady had actually left it ajar. I slipped out and hurried like a spirit from the palace. In the bracing air of morning I was able to congratulate myself on having given the devil, for once in a way, a good sound drubbing, but I am not prig enough to declare that I paid myself these compliments with any heartiness. On the contrary, I now discovered a very considerable chagrin at my virtuous renunciation, while I more than suspected that I had incurred the mortal hatred of a very powerful woman. Reflecting now, in the light of fuller experience, on such affairs I am irresistibly impelled to the conclusion that a man is a fool to be anything but entirely good or entirely evil. He should first choose one course or the other, and thereafter march on without a backward glance. To a reflective temperament, wasted opportunities for either good or ill invariably furnish occasion for lasting regret.